COVID SS

 

I don't want to start talking about isolation and it would be disingenuous if I tried to talk about Covid-era isolation, but suffice to say that 2020 was a weird time. Some people shut down, and others felt the spark of opportunity (or desperation?). The result of that reality was....some killer recordings. This is one of those recordings. Punk rules, ok?

COVID SS

LUPITA D'ALESSIO

 

Today is for '80s Mexican smooth pop rescued from a thrift store in Pomona on the way to House Of Fortune last weekend. So now I've given you The Sleeping Lioness and a portal to one of the best meals you'll ever have...two things that you didn't know you needed, and I can't think of a better soundtrack to a wonderful meal. It's still early, you've got time to plan you're evening. You're welcome. 

SOY AUTENTICA... Y PUNTO

DISSLATE // PERDICIÓN

 

I like how this blog typically pays no attention to "special" days and/or dates, because what is important to a person in a place or space may mean nothing whatsoever to another person in another space or place, you know? Punk is important though, and I know I share a lot of no necessarily punk things here but punk is what started this nonsense and punk music in all its forms is what keeps me breathing. So fuck a colonial "holiday" and listen to Mexican hardcore punk...right? DISSLATE are more ferocious than ever. PERDICIÓN are raw Mexican punk on a diet of DYSTOPIA and I'm here for it. So yeah....fuck your aunt's pumpkin pie recipe and who gives a shit about the sports game. Punk rules. 

TE•PER

BARRIO MUSIC

 

I was biking home from practice tonight and spotted a lowrider mural on the side of a parklet on 24th  Street. Figured that shit was appropriate. These comps are life giving - even if you've heard every single one of these songs, context is everything. 

BARRIO MUSIC Vol.2

PERDICIÓN

 

What an absolute fukkn beast. PERDICIÓN came from out of nowhere (actually they're from Tijuana) and knocked me on my ass in a Muay Thai gym a couple of weeks ago. Raw and brutal lo-fi metallic crust with a serious classic heavy metal bent. You know the sounds, and PERDICIÓN felt like an old friend the instant I heard them. 

TRANSTORNOS CTÓNICOS

VAQUERO.S

 

Sometimes you just wake up and you want to feel good. You are conscious of the negative, you're aware of the challenges, you might even feel helpless in the constant struggle against both....but you yearn to approach everything with a positive determination. VAQUERO.S are perfect for times like these. You can feel the honesty in their voices and you can soak up the joy that they take in enjoying life itself, even if that life holds a boot on their neck (I'm not saying life did that to them, but if it had.....then VASQUERO.S would still party, you know?). Listening to VASQUERO.S on a day when every dickhead you see is either going to spend the day whining about an anniversary or political division, listening to VASQUERO.S feels like watching a liter of blood gush out of a Nazi's neck......because in that moment, you feel like everything is gonna be okay. Because Nazis are really bad but ballads and accordions are really good, you know?

(ESTEREO)

NARCOESTADO

 

I truly thought I had already posted this tape - maybe it's better that you get to (re)visit the sounds after the fact though, just so no one forgets. Stripped down CDMX punk delivered with the same energy that made the heyday of SouthCentral/East LA punk so brilliant. MANIA, RAYOS X, AUSENCIA (who released a split with NARCOESTADO in 2017). The perfection makes sense considering the pedigree - CRIMEN, MUERTE, TERCER MUNDO, ANTIMASTER, RATAS DEL VATICANO, HOG and a host of others past and present. Hooks upon hooks, absolutely infectious. 

NARCOESTADO

D.I.Y. CONSPIRACY VOL.2

 

Sometimes with the comps I don't know if it's better to just go: "here. it's a comp. the tracks generally fall into ____ genre. enjoy?" or if I should dissect the shit track by track. It's even harder with collections that aren't genre specific because the dissection can get really pedantic and I feel like I'm gonna lose you...and I don't want to lose you. So anyway....here's a compilation. I've posted a few of these Covid-era collections previously and I'm pleased to say that reaching for a 'new' volume still gives me those good shivvers because I know I'm about to bump a bunch of tracks I've never heard from bands Ive never heard of. This second volume is more about the catchy almost-garage shits, and listeners would be forgiven if they mentioned SOVIETTES and./or REATARDS when referring to bands like GULG BEACH and LA VASE, but then there are some rippers on the flip from GHETTO GOSPEL and SKARA and there are some primitive blackened punk/metal shits from UDDA so maybe there isn't any kind of theme at all. Maybe the intent was just to collect a bunch of good ass bands from all over this flat-ass planet and present them in one place for you to listen to. If so? Success.

DIY CONSPIRACY VOL.2

SIN RAZÓN ZOOCIAL

 

I don't know where this came from but I am over the fukkn moon that it made its way into my earholes. Ultra-primitive Mexican dark punk with synths. Contracultura was recorded 35 years ago, describing the recording as simply 'timeless' would do the band a disservice.....it's timeless to be sure, but this twenty minute cassette hits so many nerves and I have been listening incessantly since I popped it in for the first time. Brilliant, anthemic, every track is a stunner and "No Mas Presos" is from another dimension and "Crucificcion" is absolute perfection. Speechless. 

CONTRACULTURA

DOLOR Y ODIO

 

This copy is several generations old, so I'm not exactly sure what form this tape originally took....but oh the fukkn power in these six songs. Ultra raw off the rails political hardcore punk from Mexico City related (at least loosely, I think?) to DESOBEDIENCIA CIVIL. There are still undiscovered worlds of punk like this from virtually every corner of the earth....bring them to me, Friends Of The Escape. Bring them to me so that I may share them with you.

NECESITARIAMOS SIFRIR COMO ELLOS PARA COMPRENDER LA TRISTEZA DE SUS OJOS

 

ABYSSAL

 

Another release, another song, another forty plus minutes of sonic destruction from ABYSSAL It's easy to say that doom is just about the feeling, but listen to ABYSSAL and you'll hear what happens when a band can capture that feeling and write a song and not just a collection of riffs and tones. I fukkn love this band. 

MISANTHROPE

ABYSSAL

 

Doom is hard y'all. And when you're setting up in a sweltering warehouse to play for a cowd of maybe half a dozen people...? Doom gets real real hard. That was the scenario facing Tijuana's ABYSSAL afew weeks ago in Fresno, and I was one of the "maybe half a dozen" in attendance. They got their shit dialed in and calmly announced 'We're going to play one long song for you" and then embarked on an absolutely epic journey of sound. You could hear a pin drop in that warehouse during the introduction...and then came the tonnage. This is the hard part - because doom is (to a large extent a formula) and the audience often knows what's coming, the artist needs to surprise the listener with the how more than the what. And when ABYSSAL got heavy that night, we weren't surprised as much as we were completely blown away. It was hot, the room was awkward, and the band was mesmerizing....doom might be hard, but that night it was as if there was nothing else in this world more important than doom. It was perfect, and listening to A Deep Sea Funeral will always take me back there. 

A DEEP SEA FUNERAL

PARA CUANDO EN MI TE MUERAS

 

While it would be great (and easy) to dissect this comp, it might serve the reader (and listener) better to simply refer to the subtitle: 20 Unearthly Sissy And Sassy Hits and say that the twenty songs contained inside are all (inter)stellar. Focused on queer and femme punks, Para Cuando En Mi Te Mueras drags you from the UK to Argentina with stops in Mexico, Brazil and the US - from nasty squirmy hardcore to walls of disconnected noise...and literally evert track grabs me. A few bands I was already familiar with (ARGUMENT?, HETEROFOBIA, HEX) but most of the sissy and sassy shits here were new to these ears, which is an extra bonus. Your week sucked, and it's over anyway.....so what's stopping you?

PARA CUANDO EN MI TE MUERAS: 20 Unearthly Sissy And Sassy Hits

MODA RIDICULA

 

Absolutely raw fist banging late '90s Mexican anti-fascist hardcore - MODA RIDICULA were complete off of my radar until Lalo downsized a couple of years back, but it's been blasted to death since it landed at TEHQ. Thirteen studio tracks recorded in 1994 and a scorching batch of live songs from the following year - fiery, in/tense, uncompromising hardcore punk.

REBELION CONTRA LOS MALES INJUSTOS Y EVITABLES

AMENAZA MEXICANA

 

Look at the title.....you need more than this? It's literally says "punk compilation" on the cover and - I mean, you like punk, don't you? All of the kinds of punk are here, and it's all of the kinds of punk that are all of the punk things that I like. I like punk. Do you like punk?

AMENAZA MEXICANA

VORE

 

Mexican solo black metal warrior Tza-Xaaguum has manifested as several different entities since the mid 2010s, including a handful of supremely damaged and chaotic releases under the moniker VORE. This is so gloriously fukkd up. Éléphant sounds so incredibly fucked up. Raw and disturbing pieces spanning more than 90 minutes, VORE create an entirely different and damaged world through sound - a world where even the beauty doesn't work quite properly. It's a world that feels like a reflection, but the reflection itself feels real. 

ÉLÉPHANT

CONSTRUCTORES DEL ODIO

 

A part of me wishes that I had encountered this tape in real time when it was released in the late '90s. Honestly though, I'm not sure I could have handled it. Mexico's CONSTRUCTORES DEL ODIO absolutely destroy. Period. A half hour of unhinged hardcore punk that has more in common with early '80s Italian rage than with their contemporaries...and then they drop in to fiery ska-punk on tracks like "PxGxBx" and I just can't....I just can't get enough. Listen to "Un Cambio" (at appropriate volume) and it will fucking change you. Straight up. This is how DIY hardcore punk is supposed to fucking sound. Maybe I wasn't ready in 1997, but I am here for it today. 

COERCION

ANNAPURA

 

I saw ANNAPURA on their recent West Coast tour and I was reeling for fukkn days...until I saw them again and they sent me reeling again. Ferocity and devastation - a modern manifestation of so many of the DBeat tinged hardcore/crust trappings of the last two decades, and seeing them back-to-back with MOXIEBEAT was like going back to school. TO listen to "No Pasaran" is simply to know what the shit is supposed to sound like - ANNAPURA are urgent, they are demanding, the songs are ungodly powerful, and I already can't wait to see them again.

NN

CRIMENES DE GUERRA

 

The ferocity on CRIMENES DE GUERRA's Alto A La Viviseccion is undeniable...brutal, raw Mexican political hardcore not at all suitable for folks searching for subtlety. Multiple vocal, tuning optional, intensity guaranteed - listen to "De Igual A Igual" and tell me you've heard three chords delivered with this level of determination. 

ALTO A LA VIVISECCION

ACKRUT

 

There was a (very) sweet spot in the evolution of melodic hardcore where bands seemed to be able to get away with playing catchy (even poppy) punk, but playing it like a hardcore band. The riffs here are infectious (sometimes bordering on syrupy sweet) bouncy and addictive while the vocals are gruff and the pace is relentless and aggressive. "Sakese De Aqui" with its ska undertones is perhaps the best example, but the tape is filled with hooks that should, on paper, made me want to turn my ears elsewhere. Instead, I just want to blast "Churumela" all damn day. Late '90s Mexican punks probably weaned on a diet of PROPAGANDHI and the classics that lands somewhere between CRUDOS and GRIMPLE? Yeah, I'm in. 

MEREKETENGUE